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Tengoku: 急空戦 〜 Eternal Sunset's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Engagement/Fun | #4 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| Overall | #6 | 3.971 | 3.971 |
| Graphics, Audio, and Polish | #9 | 4.238 | 4.238 |
| Magical Girl Concept | #11 | 4.048 | 4.048 |
| Theme Interpretation | #14 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Originality/Creativity | #22 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the Magical Girl Genre?
The magical powers include flight and magical weaponary (a crossbow that will never run out of ammo).
Which theme(s) do you pick?
Energy, Entanglement
How does your game fit the theme(s)?
Energy - Energy is the main thing that you collect in the game, having an effect on how many bullets you fire and their power. Entanglement - The final boss has multiple people that share the same health.
Are all your graphics assets made by yourself during the duration of the jam?
some of them were purchased; but most are stuffs made during the jam
Are all your audio assets made by yourself during the duration of the jam?
some of them were purchased; but most are stuffs made during the jam
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Comments
Tengoku: Eternal Sunset is a well polished danmaku/bullet hell game with good amounts of bullet patterns and challenging boss fight. The main character, Angelica is an angel and has to fight through 5 stages consisting of several types of enemies and three bosses. In the final stage, the entanglement theme is part of the game mechanic where the three bosses share a single their health pool.
Magical Girl Concept:
Angelica displays magical powers of flight and is able to fire bullets or lasers. Her full character design isn't present in the game but it can be seen from her top down sprite that she has angel wings which is a magical girl trait.
Visual:
The art style is simple and clean with little complexity in the character designs. The number of sprites used in the game are sufficient for a small bullet hell game and the color composition is spot on, where the bullets are brightly colored and enemies don't blend with the background, allowing players to identify both bullet and enemy positions. The minimalist style background isn't too distracting and it gives a good sense of the environment where each of the stages are being held. UI art and layout are neatly done with all the necessary indicators placed on the right side of the screen while the title is placed on the bottom right. The UI style resembles a Touhou game which if not mistaken is the developer's main intention.
Audio:
The music tracks used in the game is catchy and matches well in each stages. A good number of sound effects are applied to most actions in the game from firing bullets to enemies dying.
Theme:
The developer picked Energy and Entanglement where both themes have been successfully applied in the game mechanics where the first involves collecting energy and the second is during the final boss stage where the three bosses share one single health bar.
Challenge / Engagement:
There are three difficulty settings in the game ranging from easy to hard and an additional 1 cc play through in order to reach the true ending. The game is quite challenging between the difficult as the hard mode makes the enemies take more hits and seem to be a lot faster than the other two modes. Besides that, essential drops like the life, and bomb feels a lot less in hard mode. In other words, the scale of difficulty seem to correlate with the enemy difficulty and drop probability while not affecting the enemy spawn count or bullet pattern. Besides that, the player starts off with less health and bomb count. Besides that the challenge also comes from the enemy behavior where they are able to aim and fire at the players in any direction. Moving on, the story is written without any issues but it is quite short and most of it is just regular banter between the boss character and the player character. In other words, the story doesn't have much development or that further reveals the situation as to the opening description to the game.
Overall:
The game has good ground work done with almost no lag or gameplay issues, I have a stable 60 fps throughout the game even during boss fights with heavy bullet spawns. The game has more than enough content to be considered complete but additional UI like the settings menu and having an in-game menu will definitely complete the game further. The minimal art style gives the game a unique sense of it feeling like an arcade game. The game is easy to pick up with the familiar control scheme.
Reviewer notes: This review was done via HTML5 on Firefox browser and on hard mode till the end of stage 4. Final boss stage was evaluated in easy mode.
Amazing! It plays really well. In fact, I’d like to be able to play this with a controller (hint hint). The story is just the right length, and doesn’t get boring while offering enough to be interesting. The music sounds great, it’s really special and really contributes to the storytelling. There is even some enemy variety, but I feel it’s a little stretched over the five stages. Boss fights are nice, especially the boss themes.
Balance wise, the game is not too hard (on normal), but the [L]aser can feel a little OP. Also some of the pickups are a little confusing. They all have a single letter, no popup text when you pick one up, but I managed to at least guess that the letters mean [E]nergy, [S]hield, [L]aser, and [W]here did my laser go? Is energy used for anything? You can easily spend half the stage with 100 energy just sitting there.
There is also an issue that you are sometimes alone, with no bullets, enemies, and only a scrolling background. I’d fix it by skipping forward if there aren’t any enemies left onscreen.
In summary: one of the best games I’ve played of this jam! I might return and go for the good ending even.
Thanks for playing! I ran out of time for controller support sadly, but it would probably be quite a good thing to add in! Congrats on guessing the pickup names (almost) - [W] was meant to be "wave" ;)
Energy is what is increasing the power of your weapon. I'll need to make that and other things much clearer, most likely through a much better tutorial.
And to fix that last issue, I have plans for a much better enemy spawning system that means you won't be waiting around as often.
Good luck if you do go back for the good ending!
I'm pretty meh at bullet hells (last I played was TH 11) but that was pretty fun and not punishing lol. The only thing that could be improved is the movement speed, it feels like the bullets travel faster than the player.
This is a very nice, well made game. The art looks good and it plays very well, at least it seems to play well to me.
I suck at bullet hells and though most of the gameplay was okay the boss battles did start to strain my eyes, so I did not finish the game.
I think the only thing I was on the fence about was the dialogue, which sometimes lacked context and was hard to follow. I also wish there was dialogue skip, especially when I had to repeat dialogue after dying.
I didn't understand what energy was for but I just assumed it was a common genre thing I wasn't aware of (I don't really play this kind of game much).
There are also a few minor glitches- high score is listed as NaN and enemies don't have hitboxes for a brief moment after they spawn (though this might not be a glitch?).
Finally, I think I recognize the death scream
Thanks for playing!
Skipping dialogue (and an overall better dialogue system) is going to be one of the first improvements to be made.
I'm going to include a much better tutorial for beginners, as I realise now after reading through these comments that a lot of people didn't understand the main mechanics of the game.
Also, that NaN glitch - Annoying! I spent a while patching that out just before the jam ended. Would you mind saying whether you were playing in browser or in the download or using the itch app? The enemies not having hitboxes for a brief moment was intentional - as all enemies enter from the top you could kill them just before they went on screen.
And yes, I used that link you sent me for female grunt noises :P
I got the NaN glitch in the browser version.
I think you actually picked the exact same death sound I did- I pitched it up a bit for Valhalla, but used it as-is for other games.
Nice game, but i couldn't finish because it was too hard even on easy mode. Slow mo doesnt seem to help much, it makes me move slow but not the enemy projectiles. I suggest making the enemy bullets slower. Everything else was great.
Nice game, but i couldn't finish because it was too hard even on easy mode. Slow mo doesnt seem to help much, it makes me move slow but not the enemy projectiles. I suggest making the enemy bullets slower. Everything else was great.
I had a lot of fun playing this one! I gave it a spin last night and got wrecked... but after some rest, gave it another go and got a 1cc clear on normal mode.
The graphics, audio, and music are all great, and fit together nicely. It has an arcade presentation that I like a lot.
The gameplay itself is easy to learn, but fairly challenging (at least to a SHMUP/Bullet hell novice like myself). I found the laser to be the best weapon, and stockpiled bombs for the bosses... though even then used them sparingly. I had a giant pile by the final fight!
While playing, I had no idea what the energy was for... though I had a vague idea that it might be for powering up the weapons. Based on comments below, looks like that was correct. "Dodge" was also a complete mystery to me, but again, reading other comments below cleared that up.
I never really used the shift key at all. The movement speed was already fairly slow, and if anything I felt like I needed a speed boost key, not one that made me slower.
Anyhow, overall a great submission! One of my favorites for sure, nice work!
Thanks a lot for playing! After reading through everyone's feedback, it's clear that I need to speed up the character and also put in a much more detailed tutorial :P I'm happy you enjoyed it!
Hm. My bullet hell skills must have rusted too much to Normal 1cc this game on my first try. Did the first three stages no problem, two continues on stage 4, and did stage 5 no problem. This is what no-longer-playing-Touhou for 6 months did to my skills... huh... m(_ _)m
Well done on the arts and musics -- both are not bad at all.
Also love some of the attack patterns here... I have got a feeling you really have taken a liking on EoSD's stage 4 lol. Some enemy attacks in stage 4 really reminds me of the green-bullet-shooting books (which to this day still give me nightmares T_T), and I think the slow bullets in stage 3 is kind of reminiscent of Patchouli's Fire Sign "Agni Shine" which you encountered playing as Reimu A...
A few comments on the gameplay. If I remember correctly you were trying to make a bullet hell game, right? And more specifically Touhou bullet hell? If that's indeed what you were aiming for, there are several problems:
Thanks a lot for the feedback, I had a few things in mind I'd like to change for the next game but you've come up with some points I never thought about. I guess sending the player back to the start after using a continue was a bit too harsh, but I thought it made the game feel more arcade-like. Never mind; I'll scrap that for sure. You're also the second one to mention the character moving too slowly and hardly needing to use LShift.
I did realise whilst making the game that the bullet patterns were extremely basic and I learned about that aimed attack trick well after I finished making the game. Whoops!
I can promise more bullets and more varied boss bullet patterns for the next one.
Thanks for playing!
With regards to enemy bullets and player speed, I think the benchmark is around whether or not the player moves faster than the bullets or not. Around 70-90% of the bullets in Touhou games are slower than the player itself if you notice -- but as a tradeoff the bullet density is... well... you have experienced it. That's the bullet hell experience :D
This is a fun bullet-hell game. The controls are comfortable and intuitive, the graphics are clear and presented well, and the sound adds that extra layer of enjoyment. I do have a criticism: I don't understand how "energy" or "dodge" work. Besides that, I enjoyed my time with this game.
Thanks for playing! So when you collect those E pickups, that adds 1 to your energy. Every energy point will increase your damage per second, but at certain amounts it will make more noticeable changes such as more bullets or faster fire rate. Dodge points are given when a bullet touches your character sprite but it doesn't touch your hitbox which is much smaller.
Completed on easy level - if that counts...
First off, nice to hear your music! Those extended chords coupled with the simple catchy melodies are perfect for getting that vibe. Really liking the color palette, too. Feels good to play, and it reminds me of ye olde days playing these kinds of games in the arcade. Now, I am terrible at these games, but for some reason I still find them fun, haha! Nice work.
Thanks for playing! Good to hear you liked the music, I spent a lot more time on it compared to with other jams, and there was a LOT of trial and error involved. How far did you get?
Honestly, the first boss, hahaha! I am not good at all with these kinds of games.
Well, at least you tried :P If it gives you any incentive, the stage 2 music is pretty cool!
I will try when I get back to my home computer with the comfortable chair and keyboard, haha!
This would be one of the few bullet hells that I actually played semi-seriously, so I don't have much of a comparison but I thought it was pretty good. I really liked the coin/credit system wherein you could reset the level upon death with added boosts. That sort of thing really makes the game more accessible, which is great. The enemies and bosses were straight-forward, the story is very functional above everything, which fits well into this game. That's because the everything just flows. It's a game you can pick up very quickly—which means it ends fast, but more levels could surely be added to alleviate that, which I don't think it needs. Now, the difficulty levels are really suited for players with previous experience and the brief tutorial isn't at all suited for the layman, but you can figure most of that out by playing. It feels like a game that is paying homage to its origins, which I think is fine because it feels like the developer achieved the game they wanted to make. You can tell, because it's a good game. Great work!
Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed the game and liked the flow and story. I did originally have plans for 6 levels instead of 5, but ultimately the time limit didn't allow for it.
holy projectiles batman! this is hard! even on easy mode, but I liked it, great presentation and fun gameplay.
Thanks for playing! Glad you liked the game, even if you found it a bit hard!
Haha, I am way too incompetent at bullet hells to complete this, but I had fun with as far as I could get.
Observations:
Thanks for playing! There isn't a limit to how many bombs you can stockpile. I tried to balance the laser a bit by dividing its DPS by 2, but clearly it still came out on top. Nice that you liked the backgrounds!